


an oncoming storm

by the_most_painful_truth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angel Dean Winchester, Angel Jessica Moore, Angel Sam Winchester, F/M, Genderbending, M/M, Multi, Rule 63, reverse!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:44:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1495345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_painful_truth/pseuds/the_most_painful_truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>once upon a time, there were four angels.<br/>in heaven and hell and purgatory they were known<br/>for their wiseness, their bravery, their faith, and their love<br/>one by one they came tumbling down<br/>(all the king’s hellhounds and all the king’s knights<br/>dragged them from off of their wall)<br/>the faithful turned faithless, the lovers unrequited<br/>and wisdom and bravery are naught but foolhardy<br/>in the lengths they will go<br/>(in the lengths they will fall)<br/>to find what they’ve lost, to reap what they’ve sown</p>
            </blockquote>





	an oncoming storm

**Author's Note:**

> Samantha's POV

You’re not fooling anyone and you know it. Shifting from foot to foot in a dance that does nothing to disguise your anxiety, you breathe as slowly as you can. In through your nose (you nearly gag at the smell), out through your mouth (you nearly gag at the taste), thoughts leaking like oil spills on a tainted ocean. What’s left of the world is watching you, black eyes keen with anticipation, a stained glass window of judgement covered with tar. You can’t meet a single one even if you had tried—you don’t; there’s no reason to. It’s as if you’re scared of what you’ll see; scared of your reflection in their eyes. But you are not here to stand still, to lay down, to give up the remains of your humanity as politely and nicely as if somebody had asked (your mouth burns as if you’re the one asking). You will fight for what you have taken, you will fight for what you clutch to. Willpower, however, is not all of what you’re being tested on. It’s never been described, not correctly, not in a way that makes sense in your ears, but you know that you have what it takes, you can feel it no matter the doubt. Again, you heave a breath. Your hands unceremoniously tighten on your short knife, the edge jagged like broken glass, and if you didn’t have as much self-restraint as possible, you’re sure they would be self-consciously fixing the braid cascading down your back.

A second later, you don’t have the time or the willpower to think about your nerves, or your watchers, or the doom you know is approaching like the scent of a storm in the air. There is a roar, the rip of throats being launched into raucous screaming, the jumble of jeers and insults and exultations. You turn in a circle, hunched over, feet dragging in the soft sand beneath you. You can’t see, you can’t see, you can’t see. When it comes for you, you won’t know. Sweat drips along the side of your face, plastering your hair to your head (and for once you regret not listening to your sister, you hear her warnings like lightning in a storm) but you haven’t fought yet, there’s nothing to tire you but the weight of futility.

You look around, gasping for breath. The heat seems unbearable now, but you can’t see the sun, just endless rust-stained mists. Are you going to die here, a scared mortal waiting for the enemy to strike? You hope not, you wish not, you know you can’t be the only one here… Faintly, as if through a tunnel, you hear a snarl and your whole body tenses. Head thrumming, you turn. It stands mere paces away, eye large and bright like coals of fire (and if they smoke and they spark, you aren’t surprised), maw gaping to reveal a jungle of stained teeth, curved and bloodied. Massive paws stamp the ground, but pad lightly as it curves closer, swift on its feet and you know you can’t match it. You raise your knife, the arcane symbols carved into the hilt glimmering in the dusk; you’re as prepared as you’re ever going to be. And you, as you stepped forward in a hunter’s surefooted crawl, would swear the hellhound smiled. (From behind you, you hear an anguished scream— _“Sam!”_ —quickly stifled.) It lunges; you dodge. the force of its attack nearly knocks you on your back, and the mass of bristling fur had only just brushed your side. You can feel a bruise forming already.

Flipping your knife so the blade curves downward, you throw yourself on its back and as it writhes beneath you, you tear through its thick muscle and sinew. Your hands are covered with blood, a stinging, oily substance that makes it harder to breath with the force of its stench. Without warning, the hellhound throws you off viciously, and you roll to protect your fragile frame, the knife thrown out of your slick hands. You feel a dizzy wave of guilt; you thought it had died the minute it stopped moving, thought your ordeal was over. Your father and sister had taught you better than this. Now you have nothing but your bare hands between life and death—unevening the already stacked odds. Heart pounding, you face defeat in its ugly sneer, a twisted machination bigger than both wolf and dog. As it crouches low and begins a careful stalk forward (like a wild cat, always to play with whatever’s left of its prey) you steady yourself. Think of your sister and father one last time, whispering an apology in your brimstone mouth. (Vaguely, you hear another scream, a scream of vengeance and rage.)

You can feel its breath on your face, hot and stinking, like a carcass rotting in the sun and you know you are going to die.

You don’t.

There is a blur of movement from your left, and out of the fog jumps a young woman, mouth twisted into an animalistic growl. Her short hair sways slightly in the almost nonexistent wind, soaked throughout with blood and sweat, the golden-brown of a desert in the setting sun giving way to flecks of blood and dirt. Green eyes flash (dangerously, like a lightning bolt) and for a second you don’t recognize her. She’s screaming something, over and over, but shock blurs it together — _you stay away from Sammy do you hear me you don’t touch my sister do you hear me???_ —just as you can’t distinguish the blunt knife (crudely pierced together from ebony and glass and wood) from the blood that drips down it.

This time you know it’s dead; there’s a lull to its movements, a final lurch that sends it sprawling into the dirt, your sister heaving on top of it. She grins at you, all sharp teeth in a small mouth, and you find it in yourself to smile back. (It doesn’t feel right, the expression from even to your face, the muscles locked and set in place.) She jumps down lithely and clasps a steady hand on your shoulder (it feels too coarse against your skin, like the dirt is corrupting, staining, but you don’t shake it off); it’s only then that you discover that you’re trembling.

“You feeling alright, Sammy?” Lightless eyes, the wrinkles underneath them creasing with worry, scan your face for pain, looking for the tell-tale signs of injury.

You nod, forcing deep breaths until they no longer rattle your lungs; wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as if to prevent what little food you’ve eaten from coming out. Your mouth is so dry and you think it’s the bile burning at the back of your throat—you thirst, but its a burn no drink can quench. “I’m fine, Deanna, I swear.” You hold up your hands in a clear gesture of surrender, and a sigh of relief makes her seem smaller, an ant in a giant’s leather jacket.

It’s not long that you have to catch your breath and you both know it; twin hands—both covered with dirt just as the ancient metal structures that loom through the mist (fallen short of their former glory) are covered with rust—grip their respective weapons easily. Too easily, you would say. You’re too comfortable with the way that something so demonic fits the curves and contours of your palm like it belongs there. You’re too comfortable knowing that it is your protection, something that should be your fear. You’re not convinced that, after all this time (the blood rancid in your mouth but oh so sweet) that you would not flicker and die as the demons you hunt do when you kill them. You carry too easily your own demise.

Back to back, jeans splattered with corruptive black blood (it’s warm and sticky and vile), movements careful and wary: your sister and you wait for the next onslaught. It doesn’t even occur to you as to why there would need to be another onslaught, as to why there was a first. Your existence is grasping, tedious, one of endless fights against too many enemies; individual thought slides away like water over glass. Deanna, you know, doesn’t question it; her priority is you, always you, and you know that she could examine every way to escape this torment, if she wasn’t already convinced of the futility of her efforts. Instead she stands and fights and crawls by your side, lays her life on the thinnest of lines for the chances of saving yours—like a tightrope walker trying to catch the trapeze artist when they fall (and it’s bound to happen, oh it’s bound to happen, that’s what happens to those without wings when they try to fly). You want to tell her to run, but you know she doesn’t believe you can do much more than walk without her shoulder to lean on. Which shouldn’t matter much, of course, because you’re the one already doomed, not her, and you don’t want to drag her down any further than you already have.

You move like you are one person—weapons glinting, killing strokes and parries and desperate retreats, the growl of the hellhounds like the elevator music of Hell, casual touches in-between each fight as if to check _yes down here you are not alone_ —but you think as if you could never be related. And although you’d never tell the other out loud (that’s not the Winchester way), you both know. She is staying because she thinks her sacrifice will rectify your mistakes; you are staying because she will not go. It comes to you after a hellhound pins her to the ground, slobber dangling from jaws so close to tearing off her head and you drive your knife into the space between its spine and its head—you can keep on doing this forever but never will you get any closer to the end.

Panting in the heat, you sit down only for the necessity of catching your breath; the gritty sand burns but the burn in your throat is much, much worse, and although Deanna drinks often from the flask at her belt (she’d much prefer whiskey to water but she won’t risk your safety to end her own pain), nothing you’re willing to degrade to will cool your mouth. Deanna stands guard over you, light brown hair slick to her hair with the soft sheen of sweat, and you know she refuses to let down her guard because if she allows herself to slow down, she won’t be able to do anything than stop. The air is stiff around the both of you like bubble wrap, like a container whose borders you cannot see. Like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm and you meet each other’s eyes warily—you don’t want to be struck by lightning. (And never would you imagine that you control the clouds.) The peace doesn’t last long, but the oncoming storm has yet to break. 

There’s a snarl from your left, from your right, from in front of you and behind and you are on your weary feet before you decide on standing. “Round two, Samsquatch. Let’s see if these black-eyed bitches can get the best of us, huh?” Deanna jokes, grin pulled over her lips to mask the troubled frown, but you know there’s nothing to her humor but the inevitability of your demise. You grin back anyway, almost feral, because sometimes a faked smile is the best that someone can do and sometimes the falsest sense of security can lead the wolves to the slaughter as well as the sheep. (You don’t know which you are, the wolf or the sheep.)

Hellhounds pad forward, crouched low like panthers on the hunt, grotesque bodies bulging with rotten muscles and open sores, teeth just another nickname for wicked glass knives. A nudge on your shoulder pulls your attention away from the enemies crowding around you; in a few nods and rapid hand motions, you communicate your plan of attack. While Deanna uses her sheer brutality to launch a full assault on the hellhounds (experience has made her an expert in their weakest links), you’re in charge of insuring their deaths. That is, of course, until you notice the dark-clad figures winding sinuously between the hellhounds as if they had nothing to fear from the monsters that plague your every moment—demons. You despise the way the cracked desire in your throat stills to a simmer and you know your sister doesn’t trust you to restrain yourself (Ruby was just too close, too soon) but you keep your knife dangling between your fingers anyway, ready to attack.

As if knowing your plan, the hellhounds surge towards you in leaping bounds (you can feel their approach in the shifting of the sand beneath you) while the demons, grinning malevolently, pull out wicked knives even Deanna’s makeshift blade cannot match. (All it takes is a quick shout, and as loathe as you are to part with your knife, you’ve exchanged weapons to better suit the battle.) You dodge the first hellhound, managing to score a gash down its side, but the second is too quick for you—it sinks its jaws into your shoulder and _rips_. You can faintly hear the sound of someone screaming through the haze and you’re almost positive it’s you. You don’t know what happens afterwards, don’t understand how you find the strength to pick up your weapon in the opposite hand and plunge it into the hellhound’s chest to see the lights fade to nonexistence in its eyes. The other hellhounds, growling low in their throats at the promise of damaged meat, slink closer and you’re positive that this time, this’ll be the day that you die. Another noise rings out around you; a cheery whistle, oddly inappropriate for the blood-soaked arena. (The crowd boos; their whoops and whistles and grumbles are the sound track to your pain, but you’ve started ignoring it the way you do for Deanna’s loud music when you just want to concentrate.) The massive beasts settle to a stop, and with pleading eyes, they whine softly, paws kneading the ground beneath them as if longing for flesh to maul. You’d almost feel sorry for them (dogs are your secret weakness of all mortal things, no matter how much Deanna hates them) if it wasn’t your flesh they’re so keen on using as a chew toy. But their protesting stops at another insistent whistle and they lope towards its source—across the sands, into the mists, away from you. You blink blearily at their retreating backs, before reaching a hand to touch your shoulder, sure what will greet your fingers is the blaze of pain and the slick feel of blood and mangled skin. Instead, what you pull away is a crumpled russet feather, stuck between your fingers as if a calling card.

You reach back once more, incredulous, and instead of smooth skin, the fine filaments of feathers greet your fingertips like they’d been there the entire time. (Had they?) Muscles stretch taut beneath them as you inhale, and wings flare to either side, wind churning in eddying gusts from the force of your strength. They’re the color of dead man’s blood, a fire burning across the ceiling of the world before fading to a bittersweet gold (the color of eyes you don’t want to remember, of tricks and traps and wings burned into a wooden floor, of a friendship once lost and never re-found). They mock the burn in your throat and the pain in your heart, they mock you, painted so bright, so beautiful, and you wish that you knew that this isn’t the way an angel dies. For that’s what you are, an angel. Whatever haze that hung around your thoughts and clouded your judgement has dissipated, leaving nothing but the sharp sting of guilt in the place a mortal heart once beat. This isn’t how it was supposed to end. You know it wasn’t, you can feel it in your bones, in the galaxies of your soul, where fate pushing through eddying currents to say “not yet”. But this, this isn’t the time or the place you were waiting for; this isn’t the peace of mind you were hoping for; this isn’t the bang you wanted to go out in. It’s not even a whisper, but maybe, just maybe, it could be a shout.

A shout for he whom you have lost, for golden curls and dizzying smiles and the love you shared thrown in flames like meteors. A shout for she whom your sister had given up everything for, time after time after time, for blue eyes and a backwards tie and a love that defied the cosmos. A shout for your shared grief and your shared quest and the lengths you have gone and will go to redeem the fallen.

You don’t notice when Deanna steps up beside you until the tips of her wings brush yours, earthy brown against a deep red, another casual touch like the ones of before but it holds the significance of memories you cannot place. “Guess the gig’s up, hey Sammy?”

“I guess so.” Your voice sounds unused to your ears, like there’s a resonance that’s changed, a difference in tone. (Or perhaps it’s because you now know that you speak in Enochian instead of English.) An unceremonious swapping of weapons occurs; it feels good to have your knife back in your hands, no matter how corrupted its influence.

"Beats fighting more hellhounds though.” You smile grimly at her humor, but you can’t find it in you to laugh as she does, short and bitter and emboldened.

When a whistle once more rings out, you fear your sister has spoken too soon. And as before, the hellhounds that bound and grapple over the sands are not alone, but it isn’t the scantily-clad, crimson-eyed lower demons of before that accompany them. Instead it is a short, dark haired woman, thick built and swaddled in a trench coat that barely reaches her knees. If it weren’t for the sneer on her face (cold, calculating, confident) and the obvious reverence with which the other demons treat her, you would have assumed your strength outweighed hers. “Hello girls,” Comes a cocky, accented voice, coupled with a charming smile that could freeze hellfire. “I’ve got a preposition to make.”

“Speak of the devil.” Deanna declares sarcastically, but you notice the way her knuckles are white from her grip on her weapon, and your wings brush together again, this time in comfort and solidarity.

“It’s nice to hear you missed me, Deanna. Isn’t that what you’re calling yourself these days? Anyway, what could possibly bring two powerful, strapping angels such as yourselves down to my humble kingdom…” You restrain a sigh at the corrosive humor layering each word. “It wouldn’t happen to be something important would it?”

Deanna snarls deep in her throat and her knife is raised before you think of lifting a hand to restrain her. “You know why we’re here, Crowley.” She spits the words bitterly, like poison on her tongue. “Tell me where Cassie is!”

“Now, now, that’s hardly polite.” With an expression as restrained as if this were an afternoon tea party, she calmly pulls out a blade and begins to trim her nails. Not just a blade, but the silvery sheen of an angelic one, and the symbols carved lightly into the sides tell you exactly who it is; Deanna and you inhale sharply, shock draining the color from your faces. “Listen up. This is the deal. You have one year—and one year only—to find your beloved. And no don’t give me that bullshit about angels not being able to love, even I can tell. You’re head over heels for that Cassandra. And what was the other one? Oh yes—Jesse. Him too. One year. You’ve got one year of free reign in my kingdom and Purgatory as well…” She makes a casual gesture with her hand, and the quick sniff is more than enough for you to realize of her disdain for the place. “And then winner takes all.” She stifles your quick protests with an ebony-eyed glare. "Either you find them and I let you saunter out, or you don’t, and... Well there’s this lovely thing called falling, have you heard of it? Seems like it would suit you both well.” (You desperately ignore the utter dryness of your throat as Deanna looks quickly between Crowley and you with narrowed eyes.) “Is that a deal, girls?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there.” Deanna’s voice is relaxed, almost casual, but you know her too well to fall for such tricks; it’s as if she’s covered a knife with satin, and just below the smooth fibers is the deadly gleam of the blade. “How do we know you’re going to keep your word?”

“You don’t.” Crowley grins, as if the entire world is telling a joke, and she’s the only one who could ever comprehend the punchline.

Green eyes meet your own and a thousand years worth of arguments and protests and grief pass in the blink of an eye. _Are they worth losing our wings? Are our wings worth losing them?_

No, it comes down to and it always does. No. Nothing is worth them; they are priceless beyond measure, they are all you have to know what its like to love and all you could ever hope to love. You would love them whether they fell on purpose or were dragged, whether they were the opposite of everything you stood for, or the basis of what you wished you were. 

“Alright, you’ve got a deal.” You hear Deanna say grudgingly.

(You can’t forget the press of Crowley’s hand against yours as you shake on it, can’t prevent yourself from knowing the rush of blood on the other side of the skin and how fragile it would be if you were to press down, the taste of the blood in your mouth like the breaking of a storm.)


End file.
